Time for a huge post about everything that has happened since my last post.

Let me start by talking about the Malmø Derby Festival. What an amazing experience! It was very much fun skating with and getting to know girls from other leagues here in Norway. I was also fortunate enough to get to play all three games the Nor Thugs played, so lots of bouting experience for me! I also participated in both of the mixed scrimmages, and got to skate with lots of great players from all over the nordic countries. The norwegian team, the Nor Thugs, came in third place out of four in the tournament. We lost against both Finland and Sweden, but managed to win against the danish team! Last year the Norwegian team came in forth place, so this shows that Norwegian roller derby is improving! I can’t wait to see what happens next year, and I seriously hope I’ll make the team again! So. Much. Fun!

The Nor Thugs.Photo by: Carlos Marko-Tapio

The rest of the summer was kind of uneventful for me, derby-wise. I skated outdoors a couple of times and dreamt of being back in Trondheim at practice with the rest of my teammates.

When derby practices did resume after the vacation we had to skate outdoors for a couple of weeks, as the venues we use for practice were closed for different reasons until the 1st of september. That first weekend of september we kickstarted the season for real with an awesome bootcamp with trainers Mad Maloony and Ruby Rehab from Stockholm Roller Derby. It was one of the most tiresome weekends I can remember, but I also learned shitloads.

During that weekend I also celebrated my first Derbyversary! I’v skated for one year, imagine that!

Pictures from the bootcamp

The 14th of september, we played this seasons first bout against the fierce ladies from Dock City Rollers. We were certain that this would be our hardest bout yet. The predicted score was 98-200 in favor of Dock City. We were determined to do better than the predicted score, but we were prepared that we might lose. In the first half we played terrible. We were clumsy, we got a lot of penalties and committed stupid mistakes. By halftime the score was 59-131 in favor of Dock City. But, during the last five minutes of the first half we had started to play our game, and had slowly started to get some more points. We managed to continue that good streak in the second half, and after a nail biting last ten minutes we emerged victorious! Final score 205 – 194! That win is one of the best experiences ever, it is impossible to describe how happy I felt. After our win the entire team laid down on the track in a gigantic, sweaty, crying heap.

Happiness after our win!Photo by: Nils Heldal

And if that is not all, I was named Best Blocker for our team! Holy crap! I can’t even try to explain how much that means to me. Huge! And also hearing my teammates tell me they think it was deserved as well. I am humbled and awed and happy and grateful. It’s a great feeling to have your hard work paying off! Now I’m supermotivated to continue my regime, go to all of the practices to gain the skills and go to the gym as I have been all summer to gain strenght and endurance. Team Norway next!

Since my last post I’ve actually played four bouts (!!!!). One against Copenhagen’s B team, Kick Ass Cuties, one against Crime City Rollers B, one against Stockholm Roller Derby BSTRDS (B-team) and one bout against Oslo. The one against Oslo was very unofficial, and with both teams focusing on using players who had never bouted before, or who’s had little playing time.

Playing the first three bouts was amazing. I learned A LOT. But, weirdly enough, something also happened with my confidence. What I needed to work on became so much clearer, and I started comparing my self to everyone else. I became bummed about not playing as much as I wanted to. I also looked at the statistics after every game and noticed that I was almost always the one who was on the track the least. Even less than the ones I started fresh meat with. I’m sure that is because of coincidences though, if a player for instance gets a penalty they are registered as “on the track” although they’re not playing, and I didn’t get many penalties during those games. Still, I started thinking and feeling that I was the baddest player on the roster, and that I would probably not be picked for the next one. I became self-aware, and started being afraid of doing mistakes, which resulted in me becoming more passive (or at least it felt like that).

This probably sounds a lot worse than it was. I’m sure it wasn’t even noticeable. I just constantly felt that I could have done better, and that everyone else was doing better. I know that you should never start comparing yourself to others, you should only compare yourself to yourself. But I just couldn’t help it.

Anyway, the bout we played yesterday, against Oslo, really helped on my confidence. Suddenly I was one of the most experienced players on the team, and I had a lot more playing time. I was given more responsibility by being pivot a lot, and I was on the power lineup. When you play like, once every fifth jam, it’s so much harder to stay focused, you sit and wait a lot, and you almost get nervous before every jam you actually do play, and so you don’t feel that you did the best you could. But yesterday, I had the time and opportunity to really try out stuff, I got in some good hits, I made the jammer cut the track (the ref didn’t see it though, grr), I tried offensive blocking, and I basically found that I could do most of the stuff i wanted to do. I was also a part of some great accomplishments we did as a team, like one jam when we held the jammer for a full jam, and she never had an initial pass! And after the opposing team took the lead by two points, we just focused like shit, and then the opposing team did’t score at all for the remainder of the game, which was about six minutes.

All in all, it was a great game, and I feel good and optimistic about myself as a derby player again. I’m really looking forward to scrimmage tonight with this newfound confidence! Muahaha!

Not that many pictures of me from the last bouts, but here is one of me during victory laps from the bout against Stockholm.Foto by: Erlend Lånke Solbu

This saturday, I experienced my very first live roller derby bout. The bout was Nidaros Roller Derby against the Bay City Rollers from Lahti,Finland. Nidaros won, the score being 206-71.

I was an NSO at the bout, so I was sadly waaay to busy to watch any derby being played, but just experiencing the feel and the mood from the audience and the music and everything was amazing. Being an NSO was great fun, though a little stressful. The position I ended up having was Penalty Wrangler, who’s job it is to basically run around between the refs and the penalty trackers, making sure every single penalty is written down. Since the volume in the venue was so loud, I had to be relatively close to the refs to be able to hear anything at all. Which means I had to run around a lot. I also yelled quite a bit, since you have to confirm that you heard the penalty, and then relay the information to the trackers. I must admit, I was pretty nervous the first few jams, and felt that I just didn’t hear anything. But I loosened up quickly, I felt myself improve, and I also got positive feedback after the bout from the head ref and the head NSO, which was great to hear!

Before the bout even started, I also took part in a demo of the rules, so that the audience would know what was going on. The average person does not know derby rules, and it’s much more fun being at a bout knowing what is going on. I was actually more nervous about the demo than the NSO’ing! The demo went okay I guess, though a little confusing. We were supposed to do one slow motion, halfway jam where they talked about the rules and stuff, and then another full jam where we played as well as we could. It ended up being just the first halfway jam, it was called off way to early because we thought we would do another, so the audience didn’t actually see any points being scored. Oh, well. Here’s a picture of us doing the demo:

Foto by: Erlend Lånke Solbu

Now I’m just waiting excitedly for the video of the bout to be posted, so I can actually watch the game. I have, though, seen some clips on facebook, and I did see a little on the bout. And I cannot for the life of me understand how I’m supposed to catch up to these amazingly talented people we have in our league. I’m extremely motivated to make the team someday, especially after experiencing this. But they have years of experience and I have months. I imagine myself playing along side them and just dragging the whole team down. But, a lot can happen if I work hard, and I think that I’ll learn loads if I just get up to scrimmage level. One little goal at a time!

Here’s a picture of everyone. The players, the refs, the NSO’s and even some stormtroopers and other awesome shit (they were security at the bout).Foto by: Oddvar Engvik

So, next week is evaluation week, which means that we will be tested to see wether we are skilled enough to advance to level 1 (all fresh meats start on level 0). At level 1 we will be able to have contact and engage in blocking exercises. At practice on monday, we basically went through all the skills we’re supposed to be able to do in order to advance. A lot of people were relieved when they learned that turn-around toe stops isn’t a requirement until level 2!

When it comes to my skills, I’m pretty confident that I’ll pass. I’m not saying that any of my skills are perfect, far from it. But the requirements aren’t that we’re supposed to do it perfect either, but to show that we are safe on our skates and that we have adequate knowledge about the different skills. But, then again, I might get so nervous that I’ll fuck it up, who knows. I’m terrible under pressure sometimes. It never pays to be overly confident anyway.

I’m just looking so forward to be able to start blocking exercises, and other stuff that are more “derby related”. Up till now, we’ve mostly just learned to skate, fall and be safe. Not saying that’s not fun though. I’ve just watched a lot of derby lately (with the WFTDA tournaments and all), and I just want to be able to do all that stuff too.

Nidaros Roller Derby has also taken their first step into the world, with their first international bout last weekend. They played against the swedish Gothenburg Roller Derby. The final score was GBGRD 182 – NRD 113. Being the less experienced league, it was no surprise that Nidaros lost the bout, but they lost by far less than expected, and played a fantastic game considering that they had spent 12 hours on a train, and arrived about two hours before the bout started, and had almost no time at all to test the floor. I’m proud to be a part of this league!